Strengthening International Relations Through Transformative Theory and Practice (2025) is a natural continuation of Dealing with Regional Conflicts of Global Importance (2024), Analyzing Global Responses to Contemporary Regional Conflicts (2024), and Exploring the Implications of Local and Regional Conflicts (2024) for it challenges readers to broaden their explanatory horizons, reassess preconceived notions of truth in the realm of international relations and recollects on some of the most recent scientific discoveries in conflict management. It advocates for embarking on a captivating journey that promises a more sophisticated application of ontological diversity within our discipline and a new way of compartmentalizing the existing theories, approaches, and paradigms that are likely to transform our discipline.
While our discipline wasn't explicitly designed for resolving international conflicts, the development and application of IR theories have profound implications for both the sub-disciplines of conflict management and resolution. It is our responsibility as scholars to truly cherish this inseparable link between theory and practice, which connects theoreticians, policymakers, diplomats, and conflict management specialists, and directs them towards common goals that can be parameterized.
That is why this publication presents a strong case for the emergence of the sixth great debate in international relations theory, which will reconceptualize the way our tradition approaches Russia’s war in Ukraine, conflicts in Ethiopia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Kashmir, Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan, Mali, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It is more than clear that despite collective efforts to prevent war from recurring, we repeatedly find ourselves in a situation where the global architecture of power exhibits a genuinely anarchic structure. In this structure, international actors, such as the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, appointed to protect global peace and security, tend to behave like uncontrollable bullies, projecting their hard power and engaging in hybrid warfare at all costs to achieve their political goals and objectives.
Under such circumstances, our theory, which overlays static, positivist, and predefined mega-compartmentalization, fails to describe or adequately predict such anomalies. It also struggles to define the potential consequences of the absence of a global authority capable of resolving contemporary regional conflicts of global importance. In the end, we inhabit an increasingly interdependent world where events in one region can trigger reactions in distant zones. Our discipline must be at the forefront of those debates to provide proper insights and expertise in the most approachable manner so the new adepts of IR theory can easily take part in this great adventure of redefining the ever-shifting dynamics of contemporary conflicts and conflict zones. Our theory must embrace all available support. The elusive and fluid sociopolitical dimensions inherent in these conflicts demand a thorough investigation, confronting adversity and navigating the myriad conceptual challenges that lie ahead. We must explicitly recognize the necessity of preserving a broader pluralism within our discipline. In doing so, we convey a robust message to the external world, signaling that our tradition is consistently ready to engage with external realities, offering a unique perspective.
Strengthening International Relations Through Transformative Theory and Practice (2025) redefines the way our discipline responds to the profound impact of new technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and challenges in cybersecurity. The debate touches on critical topics such as the rapid development of autonomous weapons systems, potential post-COVID-19 pandemics, challenges related to climate change, deforestation, water shortages, environmental degradation, increasing inequality, the militarization of space, insecurity, the rise of non-state actors, and challenges related to asymmetric warfare. Therefore, we need to have clear and reliable tools applicable under every circumstance so we can increase accessibility for everyone, regardless of their background, and it needs to be applicable to the reality at hand. Michael Oakeshott once astutely pointed out that the convergence of theory and practice is an indispensable consideration in scholarly pursuits, which means that we need to have a very strong theory to properly understand all of the practical aspects of policymaking, decision-making, and global politics in general.